You Shall Not Surely Die

graphic by www.danspulpit.com (click to enlarge)

The cleverness of his video and the clamor of his defenders give the impression of a newness to Rob Bell's latest folly, but there's nothing really new about it. As Sean Lucas has pointed out, the church has seen this kind of thing before.

And even when it comes to Bell himself, there's nothing new here. Rob Bell's heterodoxy on the Bible and the atonement isn't new. His vague but deadly confusion of the gospel isn't new. Even his technique of teaching his heresy through questions then teflon-coating himself later with more orthodox sounding statements (that never correct the heresy) isn't new.

So, this idea that the jury's out until you read the book, or that you have to speak to him or read it before you can critique the video is bogus. What may surprise you is just how old Bell's view is.

Eve Was Deceived

Most of us have known that for so long that we don't marvel like we should. Unfallen, perfectly created, obedient, wholehearted-for-God Eve was deceived. Adam wasn't, 1 Tim 2:14 tells us, but Eve indeed was. She thought she was doing the right thing when she took the fruit. She thought she was doing the right thing when she gave some to her husband.

Has God Really Said?

You have God's words. But you might not have God's meaning.

That's the idea behind Satan's first clever attack. Here's a being that can talk. Hmm... that's different from the animals.

And it knows the words of God. Maybe it's testing me to see if I will be faithful. Maybe it's sent from God to see if I've been paying attention, and if I'm really following with a whole heart.

I know the words, but maybe I haven't gotten the meaning. Maybe this creature is here to help me.

The Big Lie

You shall not surely die. It seemed a direct contradiction of what her husband said that God had said.

Adam had explained to her about that wonderful tree of life, that sacrament of their covenantal agreement with God, that testified with each bite to the lavish provision and love of God in giving them all of their life, all of their pleasure.  And Adam had explained to her about the one non-negotiable term of the agreement: you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Adam had explained the consequence: in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

The punishment sounded so dreadful! And, we don't know whether it was Adam or Eve who had come up with the idea that God had said not even to touch it. But in Eve's mind--remember, she was deceived, rather than willful here--it must have seemed so inconsistent with everything else that she knew about God. Really? Die? But God is the One who has given us life. God is the One who has given us every tree that is pleasant for the eye. God is the One who has given us every tree that is good for food. God is the One who has given us the very tree of life!

Still, the Word of God is the Word of God, so we must not eat, or else we will die. But, what if this is really a question of hermeneutics? What if "you shall surely die" isn't a statement about what will happen to us, but God's rhetorical attempt to get us to advance spiritually? [if you've listened to Rob Bell, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?]

And what if the one who showed this to you was undeniably impressive, almost as if a messenger [angel] from God with just the light [an angel of light?] to rightly understand God's strange statement that "you shall surely die"? Perhaps he would distinguish himself as unlike the beasts of the garden by being able to talk. Perhaps he would come with some secret knowledge of God that would make all that dying stuff go away.

But in order for her to be deceived into thinking "you shall not surely die" didn't mean that there was such a thing as divine wrath for disobedience, a perfectly intelligent, perfectly righteous woman would have to have a pretty good reason to understand it differently.

The Big Lure

This is where Genesis 3:5 makes Genesis 3:4 plausible for a godly woman to believe. Eve knows that she and Adam exist to image God in the creation. The first words that ever rung in her perfect ears were, "this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Her uniqueness, her purpose in creation was clear: complement and complete your husband as the only creatures in all of creation who bear the very image of God.

So, perfect-hearted Eve would want more than anything--more than anything--to image her God.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God. What if eating the fruit was a way to fulfill my God-given purpose? What if it was a test? What if the warning about death wasn't because death would actually happen but rather a test to see if I love to image God more than I love even my own life?

Right now, my eyes are closed; I cannot see His purposes. But when I eat, then my eyes will be opened. When I eat, I will be like God. And I will have served Him by attaining, through faith, to a new level of imaging Him in the creation.

Eve was deceived.

Her sin in the fall was not willful, as Adam's had been. She actually thought she was pleasing God. An angel of light had appeared to her and convinced her that God was not as hard as she had supposed Him to be; she had simply misunderstood His words.

You shall not surely die.

The Original Trajectory Theology

So you see, using Vimeo may be new. And the hipster glasses. And the edgy jitter, that creepy motion in the video that attempts to knock you off balance visually, as his questions knock you off balance theologically and spiritually. That stuff might be new.

But the trajectory theology--that wonderful new thing with which Rob Bell is supposedly saving us from our atonement-obsessed selves--that's not at all new.

What's trajectory theology? It's Rob Bell's doctrine of Scripture. It's the idea that truth isn't found in the mere grammatical content of the words of Scripture, but that God was doing something "bigger" with the Bible--that He was using the Bible words to initiate a trajectory in which His dealings with man, and our understanding of Him, would combine with our increasing understanding of what Scripture means (as opposed to what it actually says). There's plenty on the net about Bell's trajectory theology. Google it.

I started this article  by saying that Rob Bell's ideas are older than we think. Any believer who hears someone say, "has God really said?" and then follow it with "you shall not surely die" should be thinking, "hmm... where have I heard that before?" Yes, Bell's ideas are literally as old as sin.

I honestly don't know if Bell is deceived. It seems to me that the most charitable thing is to hope that he is. The greater grief in Genesis 3:1-6 isn't that Eve was deceived; it's that Adam wasn't.

So, whether or not Rob Bell is deceived, I write this article in the hope that you, dear reader, will not be.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (ESV) Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

That, dear Rob, is how to be one of the few innumerable multitude like grains of sand on the ocean shore.